Greater Good

"Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony."
—Thomas Merton

Summer is a time of lovely things that look like bad habits once school rolls around again: sleeping late, staying at the park until dark, eating dinner in our bathing suits, falling asleep on the couch or in the car without preparing for the next day. I am all too aware of the fact that school starts again for my kids one week from today, and that our family needs to get back into our regular routine. I've written before about my belief that family happiness is all about being in good habits so that we don't have to beg and bribe our kids to do routine things, like brush their teeth. I want my family to be like a well-run school: kids are in the habit of washing their hands, helping out, putting their things away. The discipline of the school year has melted away this summer, and I can't wait to have it back.

Starting tonight. At dinnertime, we are going to talk about what habits we want to start working on again. Change rarely happens all at once, especially with my kids. Instead, it happens in stages. People who successfully create new, healthy habits—or who kick a difficult habit like smoking—do it one step at a time. Psychologists James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente have been observing and describing the various stages of change for decades, and what they've learned is that if you start trying to impose change when you or your kids are in the wrong stage, the new habit won't stick.

For example, I'd like my kids to start getting up at 7:00 am again, and to get dressed before they come to breakfast. Come to think of it, I need them to get all ready for school without me having to goad and beg and prod. If I just announce to them my new policy they'll revolt—they LOVE eating breakfast in their pjs.

1. Stage One: Pre-Contemplation
   This is the stage where no one is thinking about changing, and for my kids, it will end tonight at dinner when I raise the topic.

2. Stage Two: Contemplation
   We'll talk tonight about why we want to work on streamlining our get-ready-for-the-day routine. I'll ask them to contemplate why THEY might want to change things, too—what do they look forward to about the coming school year? (They'll say taking the bus.) What do they need to do so they don't miss the bus? We'll come up with a big, overarching goal, describing in vivid detail what a successful school morning will be like.
3. Stage Three: Preparation
   This stage is actually a transition from thinking about changing to actually beginning the new habit. I expect that we'll all plan to start setting our alarms again (well, I've been setting mine all summer, but I'll have to start setting it earlier again, so that I'm all ready for work by the time the kids get up).

   The kids are going to have to leave the house an hour earlier than they've been leaving for camp, so I'm going to have to reorganize our whole morning routine to support their behavior change in a way that doesn't involve me barking orders and then going downstairs to check my email. It doesn't seem like offering empathy, rationale, and choice is that hard (read this posting if you don't know what I'm talking about) when asking kids to do something—and it isn't—but it is so different than what comes naturally to my bossy self that I have think about what is likely to trigger my use of, uh, controlling language. If I don't leave enough time, I start saying things like, "Molly, please brush your teeth right now, or I'll take that book away from you" rather than: "I know you'd rather read that book—I would too! But I propose that you brush your teeth so you don't miss the bus."

4. Stage Four: Action
   Going cold-turkey on lovely habits like oversleeping is unrealistic, so we'll need to divide our grand end-goal into lots of smaller ones. No amount of ERN encouragement is going to get my kids to wake up, get dressed, make their lunches, eat breakfast, brush their teeth and hair, put sunscreen on, and pack their backpacks as a matter of routine in one fell swoop. We need to start with one teeny-tiny micro-behavior at a time.

The important thing is that at each step we all succeed. This means breaking our big goal into an action-plan made up of tiny micro steps that eventually get you there. So tonight at dinner, join me with the first few stages of change: think of what happiness habit you'd like to create to start the school year, and think about what the first teeny, tiny steps will be to get there. Friday, I'll put up another posting about the plan for changing your lazy-days-of summer habits back into a ready-for-success school routine.

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Selected reference:

Prochaska, J., DiClemente, C. Changing for Good. New York: Collins, 2006.

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I'm always struck by our willingness as mothers to take care of our children—and often their fathers and a host of others around us—before we take care of ourselves. Right around now, at the end of the school year, I start really noticing it a lot. Moms at my kids' school have just finished planning and executing the Spring fundraiser, and are now gearing up for teacher appreciation day. They are writing letters to address two measures on the June ballot related to school funding, and planning end-of-the-school-year parties. They are tired.

Calling run-down moms everywhere: this Mother's Day, let's all take the advice of the airlines and put on our own oxygen masks first before helping those around us. I'm not saying don't help those around you, but rather that should you become faint from lack of oxygen, you won't be much good to anyone at all. Speaking for myself, I've found that a certain core of peace and centeredness is necessary before I can really get engaged in raising happy, compassionate, and altruistic children. Here's why:

1. If we get depressed, it may affect our children adversely. An extensive body of research has established a substantial link between depressed mothers and "negative outcomes" in their children, like acting out and other behavior problems. Parental depression actually seems to cause behavior problems in kids: it bothers kids to see their parents upset and unhappy, and they express this by behaving badly. Depressed parents also demonstrate poorer parenting skills, and so are less likely to correct bad behavior in constructive ways. Depressed mothers tend to be less sensitive and proactive in responding to their children's needs, and are less likely to play with their children in emotionally positive ways. Kids with chronically depressed mothers—mothers whose feelings of sadness and despair persist—perform more poorly on school readiness tests, use less expressive language, and have poorer social skills. And it isn't just depression: anxiety in mothers (something I'm prone to) is associated with increased anxiety in children.
2. The reverse is also true: when I do what it takes to be happy myself, my children reap the benefits. Kids mimic their parents, especially when they are younger. Children imitate their parents' emotions as early as 6 days old; it is one of the primary ways that they learn and grow. So if we model happiness—and all the skills that go with it—our kids are likely to behave in the same way. If I model a key happiness habit like kindness and generosity, for example, my daughters are more likely to become kind and generous.
   

   And because research shows that people's emotions tend to converge—we become more similar emotionally the more we are together—it follows that the happier I am, the happier my children will be. Dacher Keltner and his colleagues ran an interesting series of experiments that show that people in close relationships become more similar to each other over time. The studies showed that the emotions and emotional reactions of friends and lovers actually become more alike over the course of a year (Anderson, Keltner & John, 2003). Another study, attempting to determine the degree to which shared genetics dictate similar emotional outlooks in parents and children, came up short: while they did find that happy parents are statistically more likely to have happy children, they couldn't find a genetic component. Like roommates and lovers, the emotions of children and parents can be very similar, but not because they are cut from the same cloth, so to speak.

3. Emotions in general are just plain contagious. A political scientist from the University of California, San Diego and a Harvard sociologist have recently documented that happiness is particularly contagious. Their conclusion, which is based on an analysis of people's social connections over 20 years, is that our happiness depends on the happiness of those around us. Having happy friends, neighbors, and siblings that live in close proximity to you increases your odds of being happy—the positive emotions of one community member clearly spread to others (Fowler & Christakis, 2008).

So it turns out that the first step in the science of raising happy kids is to actually be happy yourself. Happy Mother's Day to all of you out there who do so much for everyone else all year: may Mother's Day be dedicated not just to all you do and all you are, but also to your own happiness!

*THANK YOU* for all of your comments (and photos) lately! I'm going to start doing a comment round-up each week so that people can see the interesting discussions that are happening all over the blog, and so that I can do a better job in answering your questions.

This week: tell us what YOU do to put your own oxygen mask on first. What makes you happy? Do your kids seem happier when you are happy?

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

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Self-discipline is a form of freedom. Freedom from laziness and lethargy, freedom from expectations and demands of others, freedom from weakness and fear. —H.A. Dorfman

After much background material about why I was using material rewards before (habit + compelling neuroscientific theory) and why I've changed my thinking (much more well-established research about the perils of rewards in the long-run), here is my first suggestion for what to replace rewards with. More to come, but this specific kind of encouragement has been revolutionary in my household. I had to make up a mnemonic device for myself so that I could remember all 3 components at first, but I'm happy to report that this science-tested encouragement is now rolling off my tongue almost as easily as "If you brush your teeth now, I'll give you an extra star on your chart for being so speedy!"

Psychologists have tested a specific kind of encouragement and found that it is the best way to motivate kids over the long run—far better than offering them a piece of candy. Here is how to support your kids' self-motivation when you're asking them to do tedious (but necessary) tasks.

1. Show empathy before you finish making your request. This step was life-changing—okay, maybe just habit-changing—for my family. One night I wanted Molly to go brush her teeth, and I'd asked her a thousand times already. Then I thought: oh yah, express empathy. I said, "Molly, I know you don't really want to, but you need to go brush your teeth right now." When there was no response I realized that I didn't know why she was resisting, so I couldn't really empathize. I simply asked her: "Molly, why don't you want to go brush your teeth?" Her response was that she didn't want to go downstairs by herself (there were no lights on, and it had gotten dark), and that she wanted to be with me. So I said: "I can understand why you don't want to go downstairs in the dark, and I want to be with you, too. But I need you to go brush your teeth." To which she replied: "If you understand, why don't you just come with me?" I did NOT reply that I was trying to save all of about 2 minutes by having her brush her teeth alone while I did something else—I just went with her. And she brushed her teeth gleefully. Seriously.
2. Offer meaningful rationales. Why are you asking your kids to do that seemingly unimportant task? I am getting into the habit of offering positive rationales like: "Please go brush your teeth so they feel clean and healthy today." This is much more motivating to them than some version of "Please do it because I've asked you to do it 200 times."
3. Imply that they have a choice rather than of using "controlling language." Shocking but true: my bossiness does not motivate my kids. It IS a lot easier to just tell my kids what I need them to do, as in: "Please empty the dishwasher. Now." Less controlling language would be "What I propose is…" or "If you choose to," or "It would be extremely helpful if you…" At first I thought, well, that isn't going to work—my kids will definitely reject the task if given a choice like this. But then I realized I had nothing to lose: they were already rejecting the tasks, repeatedly. Most kids know that they are eventually going to end up doing most of what we ask them to do—it isn't really an option not to brush their teeth or not do their homework. When we avoid using directives and controlling language, ("You should do…" or "What you have to do now…") they have a lot less to resist, and thus offer a lot less resistance.

Here is the great thing: research shows that when we encourage kids to do a blindingly boring task with empathy, rationale, and non-controlling language, they feel happier when they are performing the task than they would if we'd offered them a material reward. That happiness they feel IS the reward. Moreover, these kids tend to be no less likely to perform the task than those who were offered material rewards instead. And kids motivated with empathy, rationale, and choice learn that just because something is boring and unfun doesn't mean that it isn't important.

Here's how I remembered what to do in the heat of the moment with my kids: The 3 steps are ERN (Empathy, Rationale, Non-controlling language). Before I was motivating them to EARN a reward; now I motivate them with ERN encouragement. If you can think of something better, please post it in the comments or send me an email!

Here is how I would summarize the last three postings: Rewards work in the short-term because they provide us with a nice feel-good Dopamine hit. But unfortunately, rewards tend to have a negative effect on kids' motivation over the long-term. The answer is to motivate kids to do those not-so-fun things that are necessary in life with the particular kind of encouragement described above. That way, their brains deliver those feel-good chemicals in response to their feelings of mastery and autonomy (intrinsic motivation) rather than in response to receiving a material reward (extrinsic motivation).

Up next week: a new habit tracking chart, and more on helping kids break bad habits and replace them with good ones. Until then, please post your suggestions and feedback about the ERN method!

Key Reference: Joussemet, M., Koestner, R., Lekes, N., Houlfort, N. (2004). Introducing Uninteresting Tasks to Children: A Comparison of the Effects of Rewards and Autonomy Support. Journal of Personality, 72(1), 139-66.

For more references, click here.

© 2009 Christine Carter, Ph.D.

Join the Campaign for 100,000 Happier Parents by signing this simple pledge.

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